Having achieved 91 Grand Prix victories in your career, there will be numerous memorable wins that future generations will recall. One such great Michael Schumacher win came at the 1998 Hungarian Grand Prix
Michael, you have 19 laps to pull out 25 seconds. We need 19 qualifying laps from you.”
“Ok. Thank you.”
It was perhaps the most famous radio conversation in F1 history (with the possible exception of ‘Fernando is faster than you’), and it revolved around a great strategy gamble by Ferrari’s technical director Ross Brawn, which helped Michael Schumacher win the 1998 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Before delving into the race, let's first provide a brief overview of the 1998 season. The introduction of important rules for that season caused a shift in the competitive hierarchy, resulting in significant changes in the standings as the season unfolded. An illustrative example is Jordan's near 3rd place finish in the Constructor’s Championship, despite taking until halfway through the season to earn their first point.
McLaren started the season with a dominant car, lapping the entire field in the first race and coming close to doing the same in the following one. Despite Ferrari narrowing the gap quickly (thanks to significant advancements by tire supplier Goodyear), Schumacher's three consecutive wins in the middle of the season positioned him as a strong contender for the championship. Nevertheless, McLaren still had the superior car overall, evidenced by back-to-back 1-2 finishes leading up to the Hungarian Grand Prix. At that stage, Schumacher trailed Häkkinen by 16 points in the championship standings (equivalent to around 40 points in today's scoring system) with five races remaining. Teammates Coulthard (McLaren) and Irvine (Ferrari) were no longer in contention for the championship.
A two-stop strategy was expected to be the fastest, with all points finishers except Schumacher adopting this approach. During the refueling era, the overcut was a key tactic for overtaking rivals by staying out longer than them due to the weight advantage of a car yet to pit. However, at the Hungaroring, high tyre degradation minimized the impact of overcut and undercut strategies. Teams predicted that a heavy car on fresh tyres could match the pace of a lighter car on worn tyres. The use of different tyre brands by championship contenders, with Schumacher on Goodyears and McLaren drivers on Bridgestones, could play a crucial role, as seen in Damon Hill's near victory in 1997.
Being beaten in qualifying by the McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard, Schumacher found himself stuck behind them during the initial phase of the race at a circuit known for its challenging overtaking opportunities. Schumacher's only chance of defeating them relied on adopting a different strategy. He made a pit stop closely following Coulthard on the 25th lap. Although Brawn had already planned for a three-stop race, they had to keep this information from McLaren to maintain a strategic advantage. Therefore, Schumacher was fueled for a standard second stint, causing him to rejoin the race just behind the slower Williams of Jacques Villeneuve, who was scheduled to continue for another six laps, resulting in a significant loss of time for Schumacher.
After Schumacher, both Coulthard and Häkkinen made their first pit stops and came out ahead of Villeneuve. They then started to increase their lead. When Villeneuve pitted on lap 31, Schumacher was trailing Coulthard by 3.5s and Häkkinen by 7.4s in the lead. It seemed difficult to see how Schumacher could win from this position, especially since his strategy seemed to be similar to that of the two McLarens.Schumacher began to close the gap, producing a series of very fast laps – about 0.6s quicker than the McLaren drivers. This was valuable information for Brawn, as it indicated that in race conditions, the Ferrari was actually faster than the McLarens due to better tire management, despite being outperformed in qualifying. Consequently, the three-stop strategy became even more viable.
On lap 42, Schumacher made an early second pit stop, with a quick stationary time of 6.8s revealing McLaren's three-stop strategy. It was then that Brawn made his famous request to the driver, to which Schumacher responded with a grateful "thank you," acknowledging the challenge ahead. In response, McLaren promptly brought in Coulthard for a pit stop on the following lap. However, a couple of factors shifted the race in favor of Ferrari at this point. Firstly, unlike Ferrari, Coulthard was still following a two-stop plan, leading to an extended final stint where his pace was affected by both fuel levels and tire management.
If Coulthard had come out of his pit stop ahead of Schumacher as McLaren had planned, there wouldn't have been an issue. However, this didn't happen because Coulthard required additional fuel, resulting in his pit stop being 1.2 seconds slower than Schumacher's. Considering the gap between them was less than a second before the pit stop, it seems plausible that this delay cost Coulthard his position on the track. It's important to consider Schumacher's impressive speed as well. His in-lap was almost a second quicker than Coulthard's, and even factoring in the pit stop time, his out-lap was nearly three seconds faster. By the time Coulthard finished his out-lap, Schumacher was already almost 5 seconds ahead. Consequently, this also meant that Häkkinen would inevitably find himself behind Schumacher on the track once McLaren brought him in for a pit stop, which they did on lap 46.
Now that both teams had their tasks clearly defined, it seemed likely that Hakkinen would be fast enough to prevent Schumacher from extending his lead by 19 seconds in the next 22 laps. However, that was not the case.
At this point, the world watching was unaware that Hakkinen's car was experiencing a serious handling issue. A front anti-roll bar had become disconnected, causing the suspension's pushrod to jam randomly, leading to highly unpredictable behavior of the car.
Hakkinen's performance started to decline steadily, resulting in him significantly slowing down team mate Coulthard. It became evident that Coulthard was McLaren's best chance to stop Schumacher from gaining a crucial 25-second advantage, but it took McLaren an additional six laps to instruct Hakkinen to make way for him.
Coulthard lost at least 6 seconds of those 25 seconds, possibly more. When the McLarens switched positions on lap 52, DC was trailing Schumacher by almost 11 seconds - and Schumacher still had fuel for another 10 laps. This meant Schumacher had to make up 14 seconds in 10 laps. Could Coulthard really go fast enough to prevent this?
Once again, that wasn't the situation. There were three reasons for this: 1) Schumacher was maintaining an exceptional pace; 2) Coulthard was carrying 30kg more fuel than Schumacher; 3) Coulthard discovered that the softer tire he had chosen wasn't performing well in the hot weather.
Halfway through his third stint on lap 52 , Schumacher had a major off at the last corner, costing him at least 5s and put an already ballsy plan further on the backfoot. (This is the sole lap in the stint where Coulthard outpaced Schumacher.) Luckily his car was up damaged, and he was able to continue his relentless pace. By the time he pitted for the final time he emerged in the lead by over 5s.
So just how did Schumacher find those 14s (and more, as it turned out) in the following 10 laps? And just how fast was he going?
Below is a comparison of the laps between Schumacher and Coulthard in that crucial period from lap 52 to Schumacher’s lap 62 stop.
Part of the difference in pace was due to Schumacher's significantly lighter three-stop fuel strategy. Assuming they were both nearly empty when they pitted on laps 43 and 44, Schumacher had fuel for only 19 laps, while Coulthard had fuel for 33 laps.
Considering the V10 engines' fuel consumption at that time, this equated to roughly 40kg for the Ferrari and 70kg for the McLaren. Each additional 10kg around the Hungaroring would cost approximately 0.365s. Therefore, the 30kg fuel weight disparity between the cars would be worth around 1.1s.
Despite this, Schumacher managed to gain an average of 1.8s per lap on Coulthard over those critical 10 laps, which was around 0.7s per lap more than could be explained by the fuel load alone. It later came to light that there was a mistake during Coulthard's pit stop, resulting in more fuel being added than intended – although not enough to justify that 0.7s difference.
With 15 laps remaining, he was leading by 27 seconds before making his third and final pit stop. Upon returning to the track, he reclaimed the lead, much to the joy of Ferrari supporters. On lap 60, Schumacher set the fastest lap time of 1:19.286, which was eight tenths quicker than Villeneuve and 1.2 seconds faster than the McLaren drivers. Schumacher had maintained a high level of performance throughout the entire stint, akin to a qualifying session – this, combined with the issues faced by McLaren, enabled Brawn's strategic risk to pay off.
Schumacher won with 9.433 seconds ahead of Coulthard and 44.444 seconds ahead of Villeneuve and Hakkinen after problems with dampers managed to finish sixth and grab the last point. Thus, his advantage after Hungary was reduced to only seven points, four races before the end of the championship. McLaren continued to lead the constructors with 23 points more than Ferrari
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Was this Michael Schumacher's best win in F1?
Yes
No
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